BlackRock Warns "High Valuations & Low Volatility Are A Lethal Mix"

BlackRock said there is a 20% risk that world events could go badly wrong, either because the eurozone acts too late to head off deflation or because of a chain reaction as the Fed starts to wind down stimulus in earnest. As The Telegraph notes, BlackRock’s risk indicator is almost as high as it was just before the dotcom bust. "The ratio of the two is the key. High valuations combined with low volatility can make for a lethal mix. This market gauge sounded the alarm well before the Great Financial Crisis." Furthermore, the largest asset manager in the world warns, "troubling trends of growing inequality and weak wage growth, bring into question the sustainability of profit margins." What is good for investors is corrosive for societies, hardly tenable equilibrium.

BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has warned that central banks are poised to tighten monetary policy in the Anglo-Saxon countries and China, advising clients to be ready to pull out of global stock markets at any sign of serious trouble.

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The group said in its 2014 Investment Outlook that investors have “jumped on the momentum train, effectively betting yesterday’s strategy will win again tomorrow”, but vanishing liquidity could leave them trapped if the mood changes. “Beware of traffic jams: easy to get into, hard to get out of,” it said.

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the global system is still in the doldrums and far from achieving sustainable recovery. “The eurozone, Japan and emerging markets are all trying to export their way out of trouble. Who is going to buy all this stuff? The maths does not work. Not everybody’s currency can fall at once,”

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BlackRock’s risk indicator - measuring “enterprise value” against earnings, adjusted for volatility - is almost as high as it was just before the dotcom bust. “The ratio of the two is the key. High valuations combined with low volatility can make for a lethal mix. This market gauge sounded the alarm well before the Great Financial Crisis,” it said.

BlackRock said there is a 20pc risk that world events could go badly wrong, either because the eurozone acts too late to head off deflation or because of a chain reaction as the US Federal Reserve starts to wind down stimulus in earnest.

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the eurozone is “stuck in a monetary corset”, failing to generate the nominal GDP growth of 3pc to 5pc needed for economies to outgrow their debt burdens.

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BlackRock said the profit share of GDP has soared to a modern-era high of 12pc of GDP, while the workers’ share has collapsed from 66pc to 57pc in one decade. “This speaks to troubling trends of growing inequality and weak wage growth, and brings into question the sustainability of profit margins.”

There is a 25pc chance that the world navigates these reefs and achieves a “growth break-out”. Even if that happens it will not help stocks, and will be “bad for bonds”. The Goldilocks outcome for markets is another year of feeble growth, buttressed by central bank largesse that leaks into asset bubbles. What is good for investors is corrosive for societies, hardly tenable equilibrium.

Reversion to the mean can be delayed, but ultimately it's inevitable. This market is rigged so badly, it's as if a coin was manipulated to land Heads 30 times in a row.
In the 1980's Joe Granville pointed out that all the Bull and Bear mkts. Fit into five year cycles. If a Bull mkt lasted 3 1/2 years the Bear would last
1 1/2 etc.
So when 1987 was the 5 th year of the Bull Mkt a lot of people were waiting for the crash. The 5th year of this Bull Mkt is approaching. We will see how far manipulation can push it.

Granville pulled a Hugh Hendry, before Hugh Hendry pulled a Hugh Hendry.
Mr Granville gave up and turned Bullish right before the crash.
But Tudor Jones and Peter Borish had an Analog indicator compared to the 1929 crash and let select people know that 1987 or a little later the mkt was about to crash.

March 9 ('33) - a day that will live in infamy: when lawful money was usurped by legal tender; whenthe bankrupt united States Federal Govt. went into a perpetual state of declared national emergency under maritime/admiralty law of war with gold fringed flags andthe American people were declared to be the public enemy under the trading with the enemy act (still active and re-signed by the POTUS every 4 years) to fight the emergency of banks without gold. Should have been a revolution!

I Believe that the mkt fell 150 points on the Friday before the crash and on Monday you got the 22 percent decline ( 500 pts plus ) decline and I believe that was the low. So the Bear bottom was, I believe 2 days. It hung around low levels for a while but the biggest part of the decline was 2 days. It slowly crawled up from there, until another crash in 1989.

I get that sense. I and many others try to bring up scenarios to help those who could use it.
Because the fact is you could become very, very rich thru the Mkts ups and downs. This kind of Mkt can wear a trader out. I hope people find endurance.
I was on the Nymex Floor starting in the mid 80 's when it was in the Twin Towers. If you can find an edge you can make life altering money, even in this manipulated Mkt.